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Sikhism

This volume offers a comprehensive overview of Sikhism, which originated in India's Punjab region five hundred years ago. As the numbers of Sikhs settling outside of India continues to grow, it is necessary to examine this religion both in its Indian context and as an increasingly global tradition. While acknowledging the centrality of history and text in understanding the main tenets of Sikhism, Doris Jakobsh highlights the religion's origins and development as a living spiritual tradition in communities around the world. She pays careful attention to particular events, movements, and individuals that have contributed to important changes within the tradition and challenges stereotypical notions of Sikh homogeneity and stasis, addressing the plurality of identities within the Sikh tradition, both historically and within the contemporary milieu.

Extensive attention is paid to the role of women as well as the dominant social and kinship structures undergirding Punjabi Sikh society, many of which have been widely transplanted through Sikh migration. The migration patterns are themselves examined, with particular focus on Sikh communities in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Finally, the volume concludes with a brief exploration of Sikhs and the Internet and the future of Sikhism.

“[Jakobsh’s] discussion on the Sikhs and the internet is absolutely fascinating and refreshing in raising challenging questions about the potentialities of the internet in not only opening new spaces for discussion on taboo subjects, but also in creating new forms of authority in articulating what Sikhism is. This book, a scholarly work of high quality, is written in the spirit of critical reverence for the Sikh tradition and deserves wide circulation and readership.” —Pacific Affairs (85:4, December 2012)

Author: Jakobsh, Doris R.;

Doris R. Jakobsh is associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Waterloo in Canada.